• Director: Po-Chih Leong
• Written by: David Stephens
• Running Time: 91 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Judd Nelson, Hedy Burress, Michael Weatherly, Susan Gibney, Bernie Coulson, Colleen Wheeler, Cam Cronin, Bob Dawson, G. Patrick Currie, John B. Destry, Guy Jellis, Rebecca Reichert, Marnie Alton, Jennifer Carmichael, Barbara Pollard, Mar Andersons, Daniella Evangelista, Katrina Matthews, Gerry McAteer, Russell Ferrier, Rob Farrell, Colin Foo, Rondel Reynoldson, Santino Barile, Angelika Libera, Moriane Ruddick, Danielle McFadyen, Disa Fladmark

Some authors like to do research before they sit down and write whatever it is they are going to write. And some authors, like Stanley Caldwell (Judd Nelson), the central character of “Cabin By The Lake”, well, they enjoy taking that enquiry process to a ho novu levo. Such is the motivating vigour behind this devilishly smart Po-Chih Leong/David Stephens collaboration, a film about a man so dedicated to his craft that he feels the need to act out his latest serial killer opus -- in this case, chaining up pretty young things in his basement, weighing their feedback regarding said state of bondage for entry into his libretto and then tossing them into the nearby lake equipped with a nice fashion accessory, a cement block ankle bracelet. Later, he returns to tend to his garden of decomposing water-logged corpses, you know, because it makes for a cool, creepy appendix. Oh yes, I said corpses. Apparently for each new act, another woman is utilized because, well, when you’re goal is realism, one woman’s terrified, tortured reaction just isn’t the same as another woman’s terrified, tortured reaction. Man, this film rocked!

Let me just say right now, that I enjoyed this film immensely even though many of my peers in the b-movie reviewing community seemed to loathe it. Christ, the folks at Variety.com even went as far as to call it “dreck.” They also condemned the film as “immature” and, later, asserted the notion that the narrative "treats violence like a punchline.” Well, duh. Um, folks, it’s a black comedy and Monty Python and The Three Stooges have been using violence as a punchline for decades, to much critical aplomb, I might add. Basically I’m saying, let’s get a grip, people.

While penning a screenplay for his latest trashy cinematic oeuvre, Garden of Flesh, Stanley discovers that his isolated lakeside cabin, located in small town Summit Lake, just outside Los Angeles, is the ideal place to carry out his grand creative vision. Even though a new missing person poster (always of a pretty young female) is pasted to the wall of the local police station almost weekly, nobody seems to pay it much mind, that is until one of those pretty young things, Mallory McCall (Hedy Burress), actually gets away from Stanley. In a classically hilarious scene, a bored town sheriff, Boone (the apparently demoted “NCIS” detective, Michael Weatherly), has her practically land in his lap during a coincidentally-timed underwater diving assignment to test out aquatic cameras. Who writes this shit? Ah, yes, they do. Them. Those people.

Anyways, McCall, who was ostensibly in town looking to make money working the snack bar at the local movie theatre, finds herself corralled Ted Bundy-like into the hind of Stanley’s van, following an unfortunate but pre-planned back road car accident. Once inside the van, a posted sign alerts her to the situation: I’m the guy you’re mother warned you about. Indeed he is, as she quickly discovers when he chains her up in his windowless room reserved, apparently, for others like her. She also realizes that she’s apparently the final piece of something he is building, although she applies that to architecture, not writing, which might explain why Stanley’s agent Regan (Susan Gibney) is going stir-crazy back in Los Angeles. Writing seems to be the furthest thing on his mind, something elucidated with the arrival of blank pages bound together to Regan‘s office early in the film. Regan’s a good agent, it seems, who treats her client as a typical eccentric, and given that the screenwriting landscape is dotted with eccentrics, it makes perfect sense. Stanley is able to hold back Regan’s pestering by suggesting that he’s doing research… and it appears that he is. Strange, macabre research.

In an interesting turn, the final chapter in this film is written, not by Stanley, but by the victim, as a water-phobic McCall emerges from the lake with a newly-focused determination to catch the madman who plopped her into his watery graveyard. Thankfully, and coincidentally, some local make-up artists who just happen to reside in town, are happy to help out the investigation by mocking up a dummy of McCall fitted with a mini-camera to catch the psycho in ritual. This proves the most suspenseful moment of the film as Stanley feels strangely compelled to return to his garden, even though the final period has already been laid down on his script, and he should be putting it behind him. A brief scan of the chained dummy-cadaver reveals that McCall is still alive and well, that the local police are on to him, and that the last chapter of his script has yet to be written. Ah, yes, the game is fully in play.

If I was to say anymore, I’d be saying too much and that’s not what I want to do. “Cabin By The Lake” was such a great time, at least for me, that I wouldn’t want to spoil it for all those others who might happen upon it. Granted, there isn’t a huge twist, there is plenty of suspense, enough to keep viewers tuned in.

In the lead, Judd Nelson (2008’s “The Caretaker”) plays his Stanley character as a nostril-flared, wide-eyed, detached-from-his-senses loon, so far past the edge of sanity, that even his daytime rendezvous into town to pick up blocks, you know, for the cabinet he is building, and other abduction-accessories, make for some hilarious moments. His attempts at coming off as normal, including an evening jaunt to a local cinema, where he incidentally runs into McCall, are somewhat unnerving and provide the film with some great moments, if only to gauge the reaction of the rest of the small town yokels who, in this film, actually are normal. Most disappointing for some, I’m sure, is Stanley’s motivation, which arrives as a simple flip blurt: “I’m insane”, and for which Stanley spends the rest of the movie attempting to prove. While this seems to be Stanley’s only reasoning for his actions, that doesn’t necessarily wash when you consider just how contemplative and meditative he is able the crimes he commits. There’s a very devilish Leopold and Loeb aspect to his character that I enjoyed.

A little too tough for her own good, Hedy Burress (2001’s “Valentine”) as Mallory, comes off as almost cold in her performance, something that doesn’t bode well when you’re supposed to be getting behind her as a viewer. Granted, the audience shouldn’t have any problem taking sides as film winds down to the nitty gritty, especially when McCall and Stanley are drawing down on each other in various macabre mind-manipulation games. “Are you scared of me?” McCall writes on her cell wall, and it’s a question Stanley can’t answer. If anything, he sees her as a powerful adversary, and seems almost willing to relinquish the final chapter to her. Michael Weatherly (1997‘s “Asteroid: The Sky is Falling“), as the cop, is quite good (so much so, that he‘s become nearly typecast in that role), as are his sexually-pensive scenes opposite McCall, scenes that ring of the same kind of sexually-tense relationship he has opposite Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) on “NCIS”, the show he’s most famous for starring in. Weatherly will probably never emerge as anything more than a flavour of the week kind of actor, disappearing from sight around the moment that wrinkles begin to emerge and another flavour of the week takes center stage, but here, I enjoyed him.

Writer David Stephens (1996’s “Repligator”) needs to be credited for devising a crafty little script, one that marries comedy and death, and delivers both with a solid punch. The scenes where Nelson drowns the girls is unsettling as it should be, and the scenes where Nelson is forced to deal with his chatty, over-the-top agent, are hilarious, as they should be. Also, Leong (1998‘s “The Wisdom of Crocodiles“), cinematographer Philip Linzey (1996‘s “Night Visitors“), and the whole special effects make-up team deserve credit for turning an underwater graveyard into something of macabre beauty. There’s a ghoulish glee that comes from watching Nelson swishing about his watery cemetery preening the gaggle of corpses who are in various states of decay, that I can’t explain.

As I said before, I enjoyed this film immensely. Should be watched on a double bill with "The Secret Window".

Followed by “Return to Cabin by the Lake” one year later.

To see more images from this film, follow this link.